The Passage of Heroes
by Inconsequential
Summary: What does it really mean to be a hero?
1. The Passage

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing written by the estimable J.R.R. Tolkien (though oddly, I do share his birthday).   
  
  
I never took up much space in the world. Born too soon, grew too late, my father never sent me out to train as a Rider. We lived quite near our king, even saw him quite often by the standards of any other kingdom, but we were the Eorlingas. We all of us were close.  
  
I certainly grew up that way, close. In a four-room wooden house for the nine of us, mother, father and my brothers and sisters. I was born in the middle, right between Annelas and Corwyn. Luckily I wasn't the first boy; that would have laid even more disappointment on my father's shoulders. No, Galder was the first and might as well have been the only, as my younger brother shall almost surely not survive these dark times. He has seen scarce a season.  
  
I think I shall live, though one leg is stunted and drags on the ground. I think I shall, because I have asked for death before today, asked the gods to take one more burden off my mother's back. And they never answered, which leads me to believe I am needed here for something.  
  
I have searched for that something my whole life of twelve years. Perhaps I am to be a great master of the sword, training in secret, or a great rider. Some form of hero, that is sure. But when I try to get on a horse it bucks under me and leaves me in the dusty grass. Probably it could smell my fear, like a hound. And any sword I can find is too great for my puny arms. I already told you, I never grew enough to be anything useful, anything other than a tagalong to the bigger boys.  
  
I thought my luck had changed when They came. I did not know what they were at first. Orcs and goblins we have seen or at least we have heard tell of them, but these monsters were new. Later we came to know them as the Uruk-hai, and saw them in the distance ransacking villages. I knew a burning anger at Théoden, our king, who sat on his throne and did not come out to his people any longer, as he had when I was younger. He let my cousin die, and my aunt and uncle in the north. I think for a time I hated him, though my father told me it was the fault of his advisor. I believe people ought to be accountable for themselves. I did not then know of magic, the magic words can possess.  
  
And then the heroes came. I can remember, though my parents made us all stay inside the house. There was a tall Man, and I thought at first he was Isildur like the pictures I have seen of Gondor's history. There was a very old man riding bareback upon a magnificent horse (I may not ride them but I do know horses, as do all the Rohirrim). And there was an Elf, bareback as well. In front of him on the horse was a Dwarf, looking as nervous as I at the prospect of setting himself on the back of a living, breathing beast.  
  
I knew they were heroes as soon as I saw them, and when they came out and Théoden was himself again my breath caught in my throat. My father walked out into the sunlight and bowed before the King, but I had to stay inside. I watched as much as I could. He came back to our house excited.   
  
We are to go to Helm's Deep! he cried, and my mother gave a strangled sob.  
  
It is folly, she said. The Uruk-hai will kill us as we travel! My sister...  
  
It is our only hope, said my father. Help the children pack, only those things they need. We must carry our house on our backs like turtles if we are to make this trek.  
  
And so we did, though my load was light-- a few loaves of bread and the bedrolls, fresh cleaned by my mother. We walked and walked, and my legs ached. I wished to speak with the heroes but my courage deserted me and I walked mute, a hundred yards at least away from them as they passed the company.  
  
Helm's Deep was huge and smothering when we arrived, but I did not feel safe. My eldest brother Galder was given a sword and helm and readied for battle, though he is but a year older than I. And I was jealous, though he may not live the night, for the sword was passed to him by the Elf, and the Dwarf (standing at a height near to his own) clapped the helm on his head. Heroes, and I never spoke a word to them, nor they to me.  
  
And now we are sitting in the caves, and from the outside the sound of battle rings through the air. I am clasped here in my mother's arms, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of brave fighters battling outside. How I wish I were there!  
  
I notice, for the first time, that my young brother is lying still on the floor a few yards away. My four sisters are off on their own, huddled in sleep.  
  
I look up a my mother's face. She is staring straight ahead, still and haggard, and I notice how rough her hands are and how tight her embrace.  
  
I say, Mama, what's happened to little Ramnir?   
  
When I see tears sliding down her face I know it. Her youngest son is dead, her oldest out fighting for an uncertain future. I am the only one she has left.  
  
Don't cry, Mama, I say. It will be all right. I am here.  
  
I take her in my arms and I can feel tears on my back, but I am not afraid. Does this make me a hero? I do not know.


	2. Worth It

Disclaimer: Nothing belonging to the Tolkien Estate belongs to me.  
  
The heroes are long gone now, the battle almost over. We are losing, I can tell, and I have only the faintest echo of hope to cling to. My mother, curled in my arms, long past sobbing. We must wait here in the caves, wait on the morrow and the carnage we will find in the light of the red and rising sun.  
  
There shall be many to bury, if we live to see their bodies into the ground and do not litter the gaping earth with our own corpses. I can imagine it, taste the copper tang of blood and indeed I can even smell it on the air now. Perhaps some of it is blood of the men we knew. But I shall not think of that. I shall not.  
  
All there is in the world is my mother and I, her head pillowed in my arms like a child. Situations reversed and fate in the hands of a young boy, as it always seems to come out.  
  
Now I hear a roaring all through the battlefield. They are driving forward, forward toward the caves where we lie, the women and children and other boys like me, all breathless. I can feel the pounding, pounding of many feet, shod in cruel iron, rushing forward. There is no stopping them, only tense waiting.  
  
My mother sings. She hopes to sing away the pain of tense eardrums and stretched stomachs and flesh crawling from the imagined fatal blow.  
  
Oh, over the sunset and over the dawn  
Oh over the land all so green,  
Oh over the forest, the doe and the fawn  
Over the pond where the swans preen,  
  
Over the land, all of the land  
we fly, we fly forever  
hand in hand, hand in hand  
and we come to a place where we shall stay for ever.  
  
She sings it again and again, softly, in a voice broken by sobs and muffled in the dim heat of the makeshift tent.  
  
I do not know what to do, so I hug her closer to me, her soft hair like a child's across my shoulder. That this is my mother hardly leaves my mind, but it seems different. Everything seems different, since They came.  
  
And now They are coming closer, closer. My mother stops singing her song and whimpers, drawing in on herself as They approach. Footsteps boom out and then I feel her stiffen under my hand, for I can hear the sound of screams, too. The voice is familiar, young and reedy, and it rings out in helpless pain. My flesh is crawling now, for it is the voice of my brother Galder.  
  
And then before I can say a soothing word, my mother has risen and started for the flap on the door of the shelter we have made here in the far back recesses of the caves, and she has ripped it down and rushed out and I see it, the wild animal look of her, and I know naught to do but follow. Perhaps I can save her. I hope you believe me when I say is the only thought on my mind, to save her. No thoughts of heroism, certainly. I was as frightened as anything but my family was falling around me like an avalanche of broken rocks, and I had to save her. My mother.  
  
I am running through the fray, along the edges. There are bodies scattered all around and I cannot look but I follow her. And we come to my brother, my only brother left now. And he is fallen in a puddle of blood upon the field, fallen and still wearing a helm that looks ridiculously large and holding a huge sword and I cannot believe it until I see the Uruk-hai, one of Them, standing over him with a cruel grin. I am terrified, frozen where I stand, and he is coming toward me and I am so frightened and then my mother is there, and she has lifted a sword and come between us.  
  
There is an instant when I could have dashed forward and taken the blow myself, but I hear a horn blowing. The tide of battle has turned and we are victorious!   
  
But my mother has fallen, her efforts to save her son in vain. I cry out.  
  
Mother, no! A strangled croak, all I can manage. I squeeze my eyes shut as the Uruk-hai raises his sword and wait for the blow to fall.  
  
Nothing comes, and I see him now stretched dead at my feet. My father pulls his blade out of the Uruk's back. His face is gray with shock and horror as he takes in the bodies of my mother and Galder, and then he sees me and it is lit up again with life.  
  
I am swept into his strong arms, there in the battlefield littered with dead. 


End file.
